As Trump's New York Trial Gets Closer, Things Get Juicy

One feature of all the Trump criminal trials so far has been that as the date for each approaches, new and often lurid details surface that throw their credibility into doubt. This certainly happened in Fulton County, and it looks like something similar may occur in New York as well. I think this is an inevitable result of the slapdash nature of all the cases, thrown together for indictments in the middle of 2023 in hopes of securing convictions in one or more of them, first by the 2024 primary season, and then by the November election. So far, this isn't working out as planned.

We probably have some vague recollection of Michael Avenatti, pictured with his onetime client, the porn actress Stormy Daniels, above:

Michael John Avenatti (born February 16, 1971) is an American former attorney and convicted felon, currently incarcerated in federal prison at FCI Terminal Island. He is best known for his legal representation of adult film actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against then U.S. President Donald Trump, and his multiple convictions for attempting to extort sports apparel company Nike and defrauding and embezzling settlement money from a series of other clients. Avenatti has appeared extensively on television and in print as a legal and political commentator, and as a representative for prominent clients.

Tony Seruga is an extremely colorful character who describes himself as

a serial entrepreneur and professional marketer. While Tony states publicly that he has lost count of how many companies he has started, those that are responsible for his day to day operations know that number to be somewhere above 240, much more astounding is the fact that over 70% of Tony’s start ups have been successful. Along the way, Tony developed and refined a number of proven marketing solutions into a system that works for every industry.

He also claims elsewhere to have been an intelligence operative and a philanthropist, although most importantly, he claims to have been an acquaintance of Michael Avenatti, which frankly seems about right. He posted yesterday on X:

I spoke with Michael Avenatti who at one time had an office in the same building as one of my businesses in Newport Beach, CA (in November 2018, a few days after his arrest on suspicion of domestic violence, Avenatti's law firm was evicted from those same offices in Newport Beach… pic.twitter.com/MFnmH4NsER

— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) March 27, 2024

At the bottom of the post, he adds oh-by-the-way,

In any case, Avenatti shared details of his client Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, case and the fact that her and Michael Cohen were actually having an affair since 2006.

The whole hush money scheme was cooked up by Michael Cohen to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election. Avenatti seemed pleased at how deviant Michael Cohen was.

Since Michael Cohen's name has come up, let's revisit how he relates to Trump and the upcoming trial:

Michael Dean Cohen (born August 25, 1966) is an American former lawyer who served as an attorney for former United States president Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018.

. . . Trump employed Cohen until May 2018, a year after the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections began. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Cohen said he violated campaign-finance laws at Trump's direction "for the principal purpose of influencing" the 2016 presidential election. In November 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to U.S. congressional committees about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

. . . In late 2016, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels (legal name Stephanie Clifford) was speaking to some reporters and said that she had had a sexual affair with Trump in 2006. In October, Cohen and Daniels' attorney Keith M. Davidson negotiated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) under which she was to be paid $130,000 hush money. Cohen created a Delaware LLC called Essential Consultants and used it to pay the $130,000. The arrangement was reported by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018.

Cohen told The New York Times in February 2018 that he paid the $130,000 to Daniels from his own pocket; he also said that the payment was not a campaign contribution and he was not reimbursed by either the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign. The Washington Post later noted that, by stating that he used his own money to "facilitate" the payment, Cohen was not ruling out the possibility that Trump, as an individual, reimbursed Cohen for the payment. In April 2018, Trump acknowledged for the first time that Cohen had represented him in the Daniels case, after previously having denied knowledge of the $130,000 payment.

On March 5, The Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources recounting Cohen as saying he missed two deadlines to pay Daniels because Cohen "couldn't reach Mr. Trump in the hectic final days of the presidential campaign", and that after Trump's election, Cohen had complained that he had not been reimbursed for the payment. Cohen described this report as "fake news".

More recently, according to the UK Daily Mail, a letter emerged from Cohen in which

Michael Cohen claimed he was not reimbursed by Donald Trump or his organization for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony,

The bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could throw a wrench in the works of prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.

"Bombshell" or not, the claim in the letter seems entirely consistent with public claims Cohen made in 2018. The additional detail purportedly from Avenatti via Seruga suggests that there was some kind of plan behind the whole hush money scheme cooked up by Daniels and Cohen to extort a payment from Trump over something that may in fact never have taken place, and Trump seems to have been able to evade the extortion attempt. Cohen in turn may have been looking for revenge on Trump in giving false testmony about this to the grand jury.

Avenatti, Cohen, and Daniels could presumably be subpoenaed for depositions or testimony in this matter. This in turn suggests to me that we could see a very similar replay of the testimony Terrence Bradley gave in front of Judge McAfee on when he did, or maybe didn't, become aware of the affair between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade. Whatever was or wasn't established in that judicial process nevertheless destroyed the credibility of the whole Fulton County case. We'll have to stay tuned.